nine2five 12 Bits & Pieces
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: ripping off-I mean, based on Final Exam. Carina's in a funk, and Charles Carmichael's in hiding. Sarah and Ellie have to find them both before the Ring does. Lots of different characters in motion. The main characters will be Chuck and Sarah, now that he's awake.
1. Insane Plight

**A/N **I was rewatching Final Exam for this chapter, and the thing that stuck out most was Sarah's bizarre posture when Chuck was going down the stairs to Castle. Who stands like that? Just one of the unnatural things in this episode.**  
**

My great thanks to phnxgirl, who helped me with the brain imaging scene. I was just trying to work with standard medical technology, but she remembered the device from somewhere in the wilds of season 4.

* * *

"_She _drew_ on you?"_

"_I very much doubt that your memory is the only special thing about you."_

"_I have to help Carina."_

"_Charles Carmichael doesn't exist."_

* * *

The city was dark and cold, harsh and unforgiving.

The running man was a creature of the dark. To him this was home, or as close to home as one of his sort ever got. The night protected him, lost his scent, muffled his sounds, blinded his enemies. Even his allies, and those who worked his will without ever realizing it, did not see him there as he orchestrated their every action.

Nonetheless someone had found him, pulled him momentarily into the light, and now he ran, his shoes slippery, the ground stony and uneven. He was in the train yard, walled in by locomotives and vast freight cars on all sides. Clouds of steam obscured his sight, noises buried the sounds of those who pursued him as they buried his own.

He couldn't let himself be taken, he had intel for his team that couldn't be lost. Merely running further was to chance losing it. Making it to safety would make that chance a certainty. He could take nothing with him into his Fortress of Solitude, his Cave of Steel.

He had to leave it here, hide it in plain sight, someplace where only those who knew where to look could find it. Only then could he seek safety for himself.

* * *

She sat on top of the building, needing a place to hide for herself, watching without moving as they were swiftly and methodically taken from her. She'd stolen her adversary's phone, not only to keep it out of her hands for a crucial few minutes but also to turn the GPS tracking feature back on. Now she could track her every movement, and presumably, those of Casey as well, going wherever she didn't. "Sloppy, Bartowski, very sloppy." _See what that bastard husband of yours has done to you?_

* * *

"Okay, now why would you go there?" said Ellie to herself, watching the orange track of her brother's lone beta-wave pattern as it correlated with activity in the occipital lobe. She tightened her focus.

* * *

The running man fled, his package secured, free to look out for himself. He'd lost time and ground, and now those who pursued him could track his every panting breath, each stumbling footfall. The ground didn't suit him, he preferred order and precision, but you can't always pick your battles.

"Aaahhh!"

He fell, the shadows that followed him getting nearer as he twisted himself around to look his pursuers in the face. "Don't," he shouted, raising his hands in supplication. "Please don't. I had no choice! You'd do the same in my shoes."

* * *

The activity spread outward, Ellie couldn't get a good read on the main nexus. "Dammit. Too late again."

* * *

He sensed rather than saw his pursuer slow, its purpose distracted, its steps more hesitant. Like lightning he reached for his backup piece, drew and aimed. _Fool! No one beats Charles Carmichael!_ He fired, and the world went away.

* * *

"What the hell was that?"

Manoosh came to the door at her sudden volume, and looked at the holographic display in awe. "What do you mean, 'what the hell was _that'_? What the hell is _this?_"

Ellie sat back and blew her bangs from her eyes. "_This_ is a holographic brain imager my Dad invented. It takes about three different technologies and blends them into one, so I can see cellular and electrical activity imaged here, nowhere near real time, with wave patterns indicated there, more or less real time. And one of my wave patterns just disappeared."

"It's beautiful!"

She made a face. "Oh, it's pretty, all right, but it's not very useful. The imaging components lag behind the graphing components by about a thousand to one, so I can see the pretty little wave forms go, but not where they went to. I'm sure it meant a lot to my dad, but he was a computer scientist and an engineer, not a neuroscientist. I'm not trying to tell the brain what to do, I'm trying to figure out what it's already doing."

"Can I help?"

"Aren't you working on that flash-bang problem?"

He shook his head. "Not much I can do with it. I'm not an optical physicist, for one thing, and this was not a controlled experiment, for another. Without precisely calculated distances anything I had to say would be guesswork and speculation at best, so I just cut to the chase. Report's in your email."

Ellie sighed. "Fine, I'll go read it for my next briefing. Meanwhile…" Ellie shunted the live feed off to one side, and brought up the playback, rewinding to the event she'd witnessed. "Can you figure out what caused this?" They watched as the orange beta pattern suddenly swirled and vanished.

"Do brain waves normally do that?"

"No. Somewhere in a thousand milliseconds is a brain body suddenly acting funny, and I need to know which one it was." She checked her watch, and stood. "My briefing's in a little while. Let me go read your report while you play around with this." The look in his eyes made her immediately regret her choice of words.

* * *

She checked her watch. Time was running out.

She turned off her app, and made a call. "Hi Martin. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I came over tonight. You were worried about _me_? But I was worried about _you_. Oh, you and Sarah, huh? She called? Yes, I'm sure she did. Could you do me a favor and not tell her I called you back? See, I'm in a bit of a sticky situation right now and the fewer civilians–yes, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you but–Martin! Does 'federal agent' important trump 'Orange Orange' important? I thought you'd see it my way, so don't call anyone. You got that? Good. I'll see you tonight." She ended the call. _And hopefully no one else._

* * *

"Good afternoon, Ellie. It'll just be us today. Sarah, Casey, and Shaw are out paying visits to whatever known haunts Carina might have in the area."

"What is that supposed to accomplish? Surely she has more than three."

"When Carina waylaid Sarah earlier, she took her phone and reactivated the GPS signal. We're using that to our advantage. Carina won't dare go to a house we've already visited, and if she's tracking Sarah she'll know we've visited them all. With her safe houses unavailable to her, she'll have no choice but to go to the only place Sarah won't be visiting today."

"Which is where?"

"Morgan Grimes' apartment. When our sensors pick her up, we move in and it's done."

"Let's hope so."

Beckman frowned, her default expression. "This is the NSA, Ellie. We don't hope, we plan. Now, what is the status of the Intersect?"

"The Intersect is still offline, and my brother is still unconscious," said Ellie, a bit annoyed at the way General Beckman seemed to habitually conflate the two. "I have a report from Manoosh about the alleged cause. The best he can do is ballpark it for us, since the event didn't occur under controlled conditions, but the gist of it is that the lights could have affected the Intersect much like random data would, and it simply crashed."

"Can he be un-crashed?"

Ellie refrained from pointing out the stupidity of her nominal superior's question. "I'm running an experiment right now, General, I have some suspicions that I'd like to verify. If what I suspect is true, he should wake up on his own. If I'm wrong, I'm going to attempt an upload to reboot his system."

"You're experimenting on your own brother?" _Without authorization?_

"Not an active experiment, just a waiting game. According to the record of the hypnotic regression, Chuck came back on level fourteen. His specific words were 'I', followed by 'he couldn't'. I believe Charles Carmichael is 'he', and what he couldn't do was figure out the pattern. He needed Chuck. I'm waiting to see if Chuck comes back on his own, and when."

"To quote a certain Doctor I know, 'what is that supposed to accomplish'?"

"I've been thinking about all the problems Chuck's been having lately, and I'm not at all sure that they were all Intersect related. If I get a good 'when', not only does it verify 'who', but I can also use that to figure out 'where'. From that we should be able to figure out 'why', and eventually, between Chuck, Manoosh, and myself, we'll get to 'how'. We can run Charles Carmichael to ground."

Beckman's frown lightened up, the closest she normally got to a smile. "Very good, let's hope that works, since we can't exactly plan it beyond what you've already done. And whatever you 'think about', please make sure to document for me." Beckman sat back. "Now I have one last order of business, which makes it especially fortunate that we are the only two on this call."

"General?"

"Can you explain why I was subjected to a variety of extremely salacious images of Agent Miller's body in my inbox?"

Oh, yes. _That._ Ellie turned beet red. "I'm sorry, General, that was my fault. When I asked Mr. Fitzroy for an analysis of the contents of Carina's pockets, it didn't occur to me to think where most of those pockets were located."

* * *

When the phone rang, Sarah lunged for it so fast her car almost swerved out of the not-fast-enough lane. "Talk to me, Ellie."

"One hundred and eight minutes."

She almost dropped the phone. "Oh thank God." Now would be a good time for the slower-than-this lane.

"You've done enough grandstanding, Sarah. Now get in here, your husband needs you."

"Yes, ma'am," she said shakily, happily. She looked up to check the next lane and…finally noticed the police car behind her. "Crap."

The pair navigated the slowing traffic until she pulled off to the side of the road and stopped, not really minding as she suddenly felt too tired to move the steering wheel. So tense for so long, so suddenly relieved. Mission nerves had nothing on my-husband-is-in-a-coma nerves.

"You don't look so good."

She looked up, barely able to see. "Officer Davis?" The blurred figure handed her a cloth, and she wiped her eyes with trembling hands. "How long have you been following me?"

He smiled. "Long enough to know that you weren't looking behind you all that often. Where's the fire?"

She smiled. "No fire, just…chasing shadows." _Running from phantoms._ She handed him his handkerchief. "Thanks."

"No problem. Your husband again?"

"Sort of." She gave him a look. "How can you tell?"

He shrugged. "Fifty-fifty. Got lucky."

For some reason this struck her as terribly funny.

"So he's alive, then?" asked Davis, over her sudden fit of giggles.

She beamed. "And conscious." _And still her husband…_

He gave her a compassionate look. "You weren't sure, were you?"

She remembered the sound of his head hitting the table. That settled her right down. "No."

"Shouldn't you be with him?"

She shook her head. "He has other people than me, people I trust. Now that he's awake I'll head back."

He looked up and down the road. "What were you doing out here anyway?"

"My best friend's out here, somewhere. Alone. And she has no one but me."

"Miss Single?" That got him an odd look. "Carina?"

"Another lucky guess?"

"No, I got the BOLO. Is she in some kind of trouble?"

"It's complicated." The familiar refrain. "She was, but now she isn't, except she doesn't know that, so I guess she still is, and she might be in more if we don't find her first." Her head dropped. "And she hates me. Or she thinks I hate her. Or something."

He shook his head. "I remember the way you two sniped at each other, and here you left your husband to look for her. You have to be best friends for that."

_Don't tell me, tell her. _"She'll be glad to know you remembered her."

He backed away, hands raised defensively. "Please don't say anything. She looked kind of…predatory."

Carina was right, he _was_ kind of cute. "She prefers the Catch and Release method, but I think after all that's happened she'll be off boyfriends for a while. You should be safe."

"Thanks. Now, you, go back to your husband, and stay off the runways."

She saluted. "Yes, sir, officer."

* * *

"Report, Force Leader."

"Contact with our mole has not yet been made. The Agency detected her breach, and forced her to run. Since then they have issued a BOLO and made it even harder for her to come in."

"Have you killed the hostage?"

"No. Operative 72 noted a call made to the hostage by Agent Walker. He suggested it might be possible they would try to drive the mole to him by a process of elimination. Agency actions so far have supported that theory."

"They'll have his room monitored."

"We have their bugs located. When the time is right we'll jam the signal. I expect we'll have the drive in our possession within a day, Leader."

"Kill them all. Make it painful."

"Yes sir, Heinrich is standing by."

* * *

**A/N2 See you in a few days with chapter 2. I'll be sitting by the comment box with my laptop.  
**


	2. In Plain Sight

**A/N **I had 2000 words written in this story yesterday morning. Last night I tried to open it and the file was corrupted. I had to rewrite the whole thing. Got to be more careful about making copies, but these chapters just go so fast it's hard to keep up.**  
**

* * *

"_What the hell was that?"_

"_Do brain waves normally do that?"_

"_Can he be un-crashed?"_

"_Heinrich is standing by."_

* * *

_Who is Charles Carmichael?_

Daniel Shaw pondered the question ceaselessly as he drove around the city, checking out his allotted portion of all the places Carina was known to have visited. It was mostly busywork, since the whole point of it was to keep her from visiting any of them again, but Murphy's Law for spies says that the safehouse you fail to bug is the safehouse the enemy will end up using.

Not that Carina was an enemy, exactly.

_Who killed my wife?_

Daniel Shaw didn't mind busywork, he liked to think while he drove, and he had a lot to think about. For the first time in several years he could look at the picture of his wife, taped up there by the rearview mirror, without that ever-increasing sense of guilt. Five years of research, leads, mountains of data that had come to nothing until Charles Carmichael stepped in, turning seemingly-random events into missions, and failures into successes.

Who was he? _What_ was he?

He thought of his wife often. He thought of Carmichael often. She comforted him. Carmichael frustrated him, almost as elusive as the people Shaw needed his help to destroy. _Who gave the order?_ Only Carmichael's wife was in residence, and the gentle, psychologically traumatized savant she was so protective of. Carmichael himself was constantly in motion, controlling his army of drones, a network of allies and accomplices that didn't even know whose will they worked, accomplishing in a day what takes ordinary agents a year. The man was a firehose of information.

If only he could be made to focus more on the things that drove Daniel Shaw—_who killed my wife? Who gave the order?_—but _y_ou couldn't make a man like that do anything he didn't want to do. Shaw thought back on how they responded to the slightest threat to Chuck.

_Or could you?_

Daniel Shaw pondered the question ceaselessly as he drove.

* * *

The room was dimly lit, the inhabitants drowsing quietly, at peace. The door opened, the darkened room beyond casting no shadows of the figure that entered soundlessly. As it crept ever nearer their sleeping forms, it reached up, lifting something from around its neck, twisting it between its hands in preparation. As it approached the side of the bed one of the people in it threw up a hand suddenly.

Ellie took a step back in surprise, hand to her throat, barely managing to restrain a small yelp of surprise.

Chuck put a finger to his lips, pointing exaggeratedly at his sleeping wife.

Ellie replaced her stethoscope around her neck, and pointed to her watch.

Chuck held up his hand again, fingers spread.

"I don't need five minutes, Chuck," said Sarah, eyes still closed. "I can get ready in two."

Chuck looked down at her, then up at his hand. He brought it down, waved it in front of her face.

"My eyes are closed, Chuck."

"Then how…?"

She sighed, and lifted her head to look at him. "Well, I suppose I could say that I heard the flexing of your carpal tendons, but you probably wouldn't believe me _and_ you'd start another of those interminable 'Rambo vs. Dumbo' discussions that you and Morgan so enjoy, but since I'm not Morgan, I'll just say I peeked and let it go at that. Be back in a jiff." She swung herself out of the bed without shifting the light blanket covering him, and walked off toward the bathroom.

Chuck looked at Ellie. "Did you see her peeking?_ I_ didn't see her peeking."

"She says she peeked, she peeked." Ellie lifted the edge of the blanket, flipping it off him and folding it in practically the same motion. "Now you have to make yourself presentable, the General's going to want to see you looking all _compos mentis_."

Chuck swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Well, that's going to take a lot longer than five minutes, sis, especially with my wife hogging the aaand she's back." He hopped off the bed, making sure to keep it between him and Mrs. Ears-like-a-hawk, glaring at him. "I think I'll just go race off and make myself presentable for the General."

Ellie looked Sarah up and down. "You're incredible."

"Why? Because I really did hear the flexing of his carpal tendons?"

Ellie threw the folded blanket onto the bed. "No, because you went to the bathroom so quickly! How do you do that?"

"Oh, that." Sarah shrugged. "Live fire exercises. You want to join me next time?"

* * *

"Good afternoon, team," said General Beckman cordially. "What is the status of current operations?"

"With the assistance of Agent Shaw we were able to visit all our targets in the time allotted, General. If we assume Carina's tracking my phone, then she should know she has only one place left to go."

"I think we can safely assume she's been tracking you, Sarah," said the General. "I've been reviewing her mission reports and her growing fixation on you is quite evident. If it becomes any more pronounced we'll have to pull her from the field entirely, like we did with Agent Shaw. Devotion to a partner is one thing–" under the table Sarah squeezed Chuck's hand "-but obsession can get your entire team killed."

"We worked with Agent Shaw on a number of missions and he performed well."

"Yes, and don't think we haven't noticed. Your team is the only one that's managed to keep him under control and get the kind of performance out of him that he used to be capable of, although I'm sure the fact that you have the same enemies in common helps."

"Excuse me, General," said Chuck, "But what is Shaw obsessed about?"

Beckman took her time, considering how to answer the question. "I suggest you ask your wife sometime, Chuck. She knows more about it than I do." Chuck looked at Sarah, while Sarah looked at the fascinating fake wood grain of the table top until Beckman came to her rescue. "I'm glad to see you looking recovered from your experiences, Chuck. I hope you're none the worse for the wear."

Chuck looked up. "Thank you, General, but, uh, there was no wear to speak of, General. I heard Sarah say 'Now' and then I was looking up at Ellie, staring at her watch."

"Hmm, yes, her little…experiment." Beckman turned her gaze on Ellie. "I trust the results were what you expected."

"They were perfect, General. I gave myself a little margin of error, but I didn't need it. Everything came out exactly as I expected."

"Which was what, exactly?"

"The timing, General. The interval between when Sarah said 'Now' and when Chuck woke up." Ellie held her hands up, a little apart. "I overlaid that same interval over the trace-cell mission recordings. If we put Sarah's 'Now' at the same time as the flash-bangs exploding, Chuck woke up just as the fourteenth floor flashed that first new pattern, only this time without Carmichael sitting on top of him."

"Yes, you mentioned that theory earlier."

"Exactly. I believe that Charles Carmichael needed to tap into Chuck's creativity in order to solve the puzzle on that floor. In a sense he rebooted him. Carmichael was the dominant persona in the vault, but unfortunately Chuck pushed him out before he could tell us what plans they made there."

Ellie looked justifiably triumphant, but General Beckman was less than pleased. "This is a disaster."

Sarah nodded. "I have to agree."

Ellie looked at her in shock. "What do you mean, you agree? You have your husband back! You could barely walk a straight line when you got here."

"At what cost?" Sarah snapped. "Get a husband, lose a best friend? Well I'm sorry but I'm not going to pay that price. She's out there alone, with the world's most dangerous intel in her pocket and the world's most dangerous bad guys in hot pursuit, and the one figment of a man's imagination that knew anything about it apparently put himself out like a candle." Sarah slapped the table-_bang!_-for emphasis. "She's already had one partner up and vanish on her, I'm not going to let it be two."

"Do you really think so little of me?" asked Chuck.

"What? No! I was talking about–"

"Charles Carmichael is my creation, everything I could ever hope to be." _Everything that you deserve._ "Do you honestly think that the man I aspire to be is someone who would just leave his friends in the cold like that?"

All three women shook their heads.

"No," said Beckman.

"Never," said Ellie.

"Not in a million years," said Sarah.

"Then you have to believe like I do, that Carmichael left us something, some clue, because I know that's what I would have done."

"Find that clue, Chuck," said Beckman, "And do it soon, because in a few hours the doors start coming down. You have to find proof that she's not a traitor before that happens."

* * *

The place to start was at the end. "If we made a plan in the vault, the logical place to expect me, I mean him, to drop a clue about it would be right outside." They watched as the team moved backwards to the door. "You checked the message for a note?" He didn't wait for the inevitable 'yes' before asking, "What's she touching?"

Ellie didn't look up. "According to Stanley's report, the outline of the object in her pocket is consistent with a three-pronged electronic key before the vault, and with a high-density, encrypted flash drive after."

"You made a security man do a high resolution analysis of the contents of _those_ pockets? Man, talk about NSFW!"

"Focus, Chuck!"

"And not on the pants," added Sarah.

Chuck winked at her. "Aren't _we_ picky. Wow, we weren't in there long, were we?"

"No. Not long enough to leave a note inside. They checked the boxes you opened and even for tracings in the dust. Nothing."

"No tracings?"

"No dust."

"You want me to go forward now?" asked Ellie.

"Doesn't seem to be much point to keep going backward," said Chuck. "But, you know, due diligence, and all that."

"'Due diligence' my cute behind," said Ellie with a snort. "You just want to see the fourteenth floor."

"I'll let Devon worry about the state of your behind, sis. You guys have to admit you've been playing the place up for—wow, is that simple puzzle or what?"

"Even Casey thought it was trivial," said Ellie.

"I just figured it out, going backward," said Sarah.

"Must be easy, then. Ow!" He rubbed his arm as they came out the door on the floor above, laughed, and pointed at the floor. "What's he pointing at?"

Ellie put up a graphic of the floor plan.

"What's this, computer colors? But how does the-oh, duh. Stupid me." Chuck watched as the flashing pattern on the screen matched the pattern he'd deduced from the way they walked the floor. The second pattern was even easier, and by the time they were coming out of the door to the fourteenth floor he was wondering why everyone thought this Stanley guy was such a genius. "Well, that was a waste of time. Play it forward, sis, we'll go back to the vault and take it from the top."

* * *

When the call came through, General Beckman pounced on it with an eagerness that was unbecoming in a senior officer. "Talk to me, Ellie. Where are Chuck and Sarah?"

"I sent them home, General. Chuck was right, Carmichael left it literally in plain sight, but only Chuck had the right pair of eyes."

"What did he find?"

"This." Ellie's image winked out, replaced by Chuck, looking nervous. Ellie spoke off camera. "You ready?"

He nodded. "Do it." Whatever he told her to do wasn't recorded. The agonized stretching of his face, a whole-body spasm confined to a few square inches, was quite evident. When it ended Beckman knew she wasn't looking at Chuck.

"My name is Charles Carmichael. I am being pursued, so listen carefully. Everything that Agent Carina Miller has done she has done on _my_ authority…"

"Not that you have any," thought Beckman as she listened to him giving instructions for when and how to bring her in, accurately predicting Beckman's every move. She noted the current time in the corner. _Too little, too late._

"In the event that this message should fail to make it on time, Carina will be thrown upon her own resources, and those of her friends. Fortunately, there are plenty of old houses in Washington." Chuck smiled. "Carmichael out." Chuck fell out of camera range. Beckman heard sounds of feminine distress before someone cut the recording.

Ellie came back. "There's your proof, General. Now we know that Carina isn't a traitor."

Beckman smiled. Carmichael's plans and their own had dovetailed perfectly."Oh, we know more than that, Ellie. He know exactly where she's going to be. We just have to wait for her to be there."

* * *

Morgan was bustling-that was the only word for it-as he came in the door of the B&B late that night, or early that next morning. He bounced up the stairs two at a time and…stopped. He didn't see a light in his room, no glow under the door. Was Carina not here? She said she would be.

He smacked himself in the head. _Of course, she's asleep._ He opened his door as quietly as he could, using the screen of his phone as a flashlight. No one was sleeping in his bed. He slapped at the lights.

* * *

"Martin Carmichael in on site."

"Noted. Now we wait."

* * *

Morgan went over to his desk and put down his bag, sighing his disappointment. Then he turned to close his door and noticed a folded piece of paper on the floor. Someone must have slipped it underneath, probably Mrs. Pendergast telling him about new guests. He bent and picked it up, and knew he was wrong. It was in Carina's handwriting.

_Please find me._

* * *

**A/N2 **Oh boy, I can't wait to find out what happens next! **  
**

Oh, uh, yes, well, see you next time, as soon as I figure out what that is. Any thoughts on that? Anyone? Bueller?


	3. Plain Insight

**A/N** A bit of a time warp here, filling in the gap at the end of last chapter, right before Morgan got home

* * *

"_I'll just say I peeked and let it go at that."_

"_Ask your wife sometime, Chuck."_

"_Charles Carmichael is my creation."_

"_There's your proof, General."_

* * *

Chuck sat in his seat, eyes shut, wishing his ears had flaps so he could close them too. For once he even wished she'd drive faster, get the trip over sooner. That hoped died at the first, tiniest imperfection in the street, magnified into groan-inducing discomfort by the speed at which they hit it. She'd kept to the speed limit since then. "I'm sorry, Sarah."

"You're _sorry_?" she almost shrieked, but she remembered at the last minute and kept her voice pitched low. "For what? For being the most amazing, wonderful man on Earth, for giving me new reasons every day to be amazed and…humbled, that you'd let me be your wife? If that's what you're sorry for you're just going to have to get used to it, because I'll never forgive you."

"But we were too late…"

"You can't know that, Chuck," said Agent Carmichael. "If we'd watched the recording forward from the beginning, yes, you would have hit the pattern faster but we can't know if it would have helped at all." Her face fell, Sarah taking over where 'Agent Carmichael' left off. "But what I do know, and this I blame myself for, is that even after you went through that terrible pain once, you went through it again because I wasn't recording you the first time. I'm the one who should be sorry. You are in this pain right now for Carina's sake, and I couldn't love you or be more proud of you than I am right now."

"I can hear your carpal tendons flexing, you must be crying."

She laughed, she cried, she did something in between. "You're such a goof." After a while spent driving in silence, she asked, in a very small voice, "Chuck?"

"Hmmm?"

"You haven't asked, but I know you must be wondering. About Shaw." Oh how she hated Diane Beckman right now!

He didn't jump on the invitation. "Does it matter to the mission?"

_Even now he's trying to save me, spare me…_"No. But it matters…about me." _What sort of thing I am._

He gave her a second chance. "Is this the right time or place?"

_We can't feel much worse. I can't. _ "Like Carina said, I'm not sure there is one for this."

"That bad, huh?"

She nodded so hard he could feel it.

He overcame his pain so hard she could hear it."There's an old saying, isn't there, about pain shared?"

"Pain shared is halved, joy shared is doubled," she whispered.

"Well, there you go. What are you waiting for?" Chuck opened his eyes, and his ears.

"I guess I was waiting…to know that you could hear it. To believe you could. After what I saw you do for Carina, I'm hoping you can do this for me."

"Anything I would do for Carina I would do a thousand times over for you."

She took a deep breath, so she wouldn't cry. "Shaw's obsession is for his wife. She was shot and killed on a street corner in Paris, five years ago."

When she stayed silent for a few seconds, Chuck said, "I'm not really sure why Beckman thought you were the go-to girl for this."

"I could say it's because he told me about her, just a few days ago…"

"That's a good reason, I guess."

"But I'd be lying." She ducked her head (keeping her eyes on the road, of course), and bulled on through. "I know about it because I was the one who shot her, Chuck. When Shaw told me his story I finally knew who I killed that day. My worst day."

"You didn't know before?"

"No. They gave me a picture, and told me what to do."

"Did they tell you why?"

"No." She swallowed, anything to make it easier to get the words out, her throat was dry. "They were testing me, Chuck. Testing my ability to kill simply because I was told to." And there it was…

Chuck sat up straight, in spite of his mere pain. "You're telling me it was deliberate?"

"It's called a Red Test, Chuck. Every spy takes it. It's why both Casey and I, and Beckman too, kept you away from Prague. You could have done everything but that."

"But you could." He didn't sound angry, or accusing. He sounded sad.

"'How come you never learned that it was wrong?" she said quietly. "'That there are some things you do not do in a civilized society.' You remember that line, Chuck? What do you always say, right after it?"

"'Who was there to tell him?' Or you." He took her hand, so cold in his own.

"I'm a con artist's daughter, Chuck. I've lied for a living since I was nine, but that night was real, that was true." She'd shot someone right in the heart that night, she wasn't sure who. "It was…just another con, that's all. I pulled it on myself, easy to do when everyone around you is doing the same thing. Let my soul go to that numb place where you found me."

He hated that song, hated that she had ever spent time in the dark. _Luminous beings are we…_ "It may not have been a lie, you know, they may have had a reason that they simply didn't tell you."

"That's what I tell myself, Chuck." _Every night. Every time you look at me like…_

He sighed. "I knew you were in pain. I knew you were hiding something all this time."

"I was so ashamed. I thought I buried it, but then you—and then we—and then I was terrified that I'd lose you, when you found out your wife was a killer…"

Unfortunately the world sometimes needs killers, he thought but did not say. She didn't need to hear that right now. "I'm sorry I was such a baby about all that, freaking out about everything when you're out there trying to save the world–"

"Not the world, just you." She gave him a shaky smile, daring a small hope. "Tell you what. I'll d my best to save the world, Chuck, as long as you'll be there to save _me_."

_Deal. _He squeezed her hand. "I'm glad you told me, even if it took a General ratting you out to make you do it." He smiled, looked at her _like that_. "Please don't kill her."

She took it as the joke he intended it to be, and squeezed his hand back. "You spoiled me for that, Chuck. I could hardly bring myself to kill Mauser, and he was a direct threat to you." How strange, it didn't hurt after all.

"I know what you need," said Chuck suddenly. "You need a nice bowl of popcorn for dinner, with a mug of hot cocoa on the side, and then a nap before the mission tonight."

_Hey, no way!_ "I'm supposed to be taking care of _you_ tonight."

"Okay, well, then we'll just have to take care of each other. I'll make the popcorn, using the super-secret Bartowski family recipe, and you can make the cocoa, recipe on the label."

"Chuck, that sounds…awesome. Dibs on the tuck-up."

He groaned. "I was sort of hoping you'd tuck _me_ up."

"That's what I meant."

* * *

Daniel Shaw wasn't surprised to get called to join the mission at the staging area that night.

_Who gave the order?_

He was the logical choice, having been part of the previous stage that day. Still, it was inconvenient. Agent Carmichael would be there too, and Chuck would be alone. That wouldn't happen often.

_Who killed my wife?_

He went to get ready.

* * *

"Sarah?" asked Chuck as they lay there, resting before she had to go. "Can I ask you a question?"

She stopped playing with his chest hairs. "Of course, Chuck."

"Have you ever failed on a mission?"

She lifted her head to look at him. "Well, there was this one mission, they sent me to babysit a geeky guy in LA…"

"That's nerdy, not geeky."

"The orders said 'geeky'. By the time I learned the difference he'd already wormed his nerdy way into my heart and that was it for the mission." Back down for more snuggling. "I blame the pencil-pushers."

He laughed. "I don't think Beckman would really class this as a failure."

"Oh. Then no."

"So this is your first one?"

She pushed herself up over him, not menacing enough to compensate for the lingerie, but it was a good effort. He did look up at her face. Eventually. "_What_ is my first one?"

"You have to admit that General Beckman did give you an order to explain Shaw's obsession to me. You made a good start, but we got detoured off onto the Red Test Super-Highway and never came back. Her death, sanction, whatever you choose to call it, does not an obsession make."

She granted him the point and sank back down into his arms. "He blamed the Ring for her death, and became obsessed with finding and destroying them."

"Useful."

"Not in a field agent, or an analyst. He was too focused on the end goal to see that a tiny sideways step, or even a strategic withdrawal, would win the day."

"It worked for the Spartans."

"Exactly…_hey!_"

He smirked. "Something tells me you've never played Age of Empires."

"No," she grumped. _But I will._

* * *

_The night was still, the air cool, the streets almost empty. The signs were all in French, and the city was Paris. A young couple came into sight, a man and a woman, strolling like young lovers. The man raised a hand, possibly pointing out some interesting architecture on the building across the way. "You'll take up a sniper position there, while I meet our contact here." They rounded the corner, onto a small outdoor café._

_The woman stopped. I've been here before," she said, her gun now in her hand._

"_I know you have, Sarah," said Daniel Shaw. "So have I, many times." Her eyes became unfocused, her body wavered. The gun fell away. "And so has my sniper. The gun is heavy, isn't it? Ring drugs are like that. It's useful, in a way. I can tell you why I'm killing you as I do it. Part of my mission." He took the gun from her limp fingers, turned it on her._

_The bistro started playing mariachi music._

Chuck sat up in bed, alone, breathing hard without knowing why. He picked up his phone, saw Morgan's name. "What?"

"Chuck, we need you," shouted Carina in his ear. "There's Ring agents everywhere, and I can't find Casey or Sarah."

His hand felt her side of the bed, empty and cold. She'd left long ago for the mission. Her mission. "Is Shaw there with you?" His obsession.

"Uh…I guess so. I think I saw him."

The killer of his wife.

"Just get up here, will you Chuck? We need you. We need Charles Carmichael."

"But…I'm not Charles Carmichael, nobody is."

Fine, be that way. You want the code, I'll give you the damn code. Orange, orange, green, red, orange, red.

Chuck flashed.

* * *

The city was dark and cold, harsh and unforgiving.

The running man was a creature of the light. To him this place was as alien a landscape as the Moon, or some other place not a bit like Earth. The night blinded him, spread his scent, carried his sounds, hid his enemies. His allies, and those who worked his will without ever realizing it, could not see him there.

Unsurprisingly, someone had found him, pulled him momentarily from the light, and now he ran, his shoes slippery, the ground stony and uneven. He was in a train yard, walled in by locomotives and vast freight cars on all sides. Clouds of steam obscured his sight, noises buried the sounds of those who pursued him as they echoed his own.

He couldn't let himself be taken, his team needed him. Merely running further was to chance getting lost. Making it to safety would make that chance a certainty.

He had to stay here, out it in plain sight, someplace where those who knew where to look could find him. Only in plain sight could he find safety for himself.

The running man fled, following the tracks and switches as best he could. He'd lost time and ground, and now those who pursued him could track his every panting breath, each stumbling footfall. The ground didn't suit him, he preferred order and precision, but you can't always pick your battles.

"Aaahhh!"

He fell, his pursuers getting nearer as he twisted himself around to look his pursuers in the face. "Don't," Chuck shouted, raising his hands in supplication. "Please don't. You'd do the same as me, you are me."

Someone stepped from the darkness that so suited him, into the shadows. Charles Carmichael looked down on his victim, gun in hand. "I'll do the same as you. I am you," he said in a ghastly echo. "But I need the body." He raised the gun and fired.

Chuck's world went away.

* * *

**A/N2 **The suspense is killing me!


	4. Now for something completely different

**A/N **I wrote the first half of this today. The second half I wrote yesterday.

* * *

"_You're _sorry_?"_

"_You could have done everything but that."_

"_We need Charles Carmichael."_

"_I need the body."_

* * *

_Please find me _ wasn't much of an instruction, but there weren't really all that many places she could be hiding, especially when you left out the obvious places, like under the bed and stuff like that. Not that that stopped him from looking, a quick peek, but he didn't really think so. There was the kitchen, and the dining room, of course, but he knew she wouldn't be there. He got up and walked out of the room.

* * *

"Target is no longer on primary site. Activating secondaries. Target is…in the bathroom again."

"Bring up the attic."

"There's only the one mike up there, sir. On audio."

"Any CIA bugs?" His man shrugged, shaking his head. "Suppress the house, just in case."

* * *

Once again Morgan was glad his phone had such a bright screen, he could see the trail of their footprints in the dust very clearly. After everything that had happened, the last thing he wanted was for anyone to have to worry about more intruders. He followed the trail of nails across the floor to the door of the secret room, which apparently wasn't so secret anymore. The dust he'd stirred up was getting quite visibly sucked into a crack in the wall, so he felt along there for some way to open it, glad that movies were just movies and old secret rooms really weren't all that hard to—dammit, where was that thing?

The door opened, and he jumped back. Nothing came out at him, so he grabbed the panel and opened it wider, taking a peek inside.

Carina sat on the floor, a bottle of something in her hand. "Took you long enough."

Sometimes she made it really hard to be a gentleman. "So that's where he keeps it."

"Huh?"

"Mrs. P thinks that Mr. P is on the wagon," said Morgan, gesturing at the bottle.

She held it up, sloshed it around. "He is now."

The bottle wasn't the only thing that sloshed. "You really did a number on yourself, didn't you?"

_I was alone, I was cold, it was there. _"Why not, all my friends are doing it," she said, taking another swig. "There'll be a 'pickoncarinaday' hashtag soon, haven't you heard?"

Drunk Federal Agents were a little out of his league. "Have you asked Sarah what to do? Or Chuck, maybe?"

Carina threw her nearly empty bottle at him. "Those two traitors."

* * *

Leader held up a finger. The man on the audio board started recording.

* * *

Morgan caught the bottle, so it wouldn't fall and make a noise. "They didn't betray anyone."

"Not you, maybe. Not their country. Me, not a problem. Leave me twisting in the wind, abandon me in the middle of an operation, oo, I've got your back, Carina." She held up her hand in the familiar gesture. "You got this, buddy. I thought I could trust _him_ at least."

"Trust who? Chuck? You brought Chuck along on an operation?" Taking his friend into danger?

"God, you're so clueless, Martin, maybe that's what I like about you. I didn't bring him on my operation, he brought me on his."

"What are you talking about? They're not spies."

Carina giggled. "Sarah Walker is the most natural, most effortless spy in the world. She's an artist." She frowned woozily. "Seeing her married to that…nerd, is like seeing the Mona Lisa hung in a meat locker. But no matter what I did she just wrapped herself around him, tighter and tighter. I thought Chuck saw that, he _said_ he was making himself the man she deserved…"

"Did he know she was a spy?"

She stared at him. "Did your parents find you in a dumpster? How could he _not_ know? Everything Charles Carmichael's done for the last three years has been to make himself a spy worthy of Sarah Walker, and boy, did he succeed. When that guy puts his mind on something…"

"My friend Chuck is a spy?"

* * *

"I knew it," shouted Leader. "I knew he was the link!"

* * *

"Your friend Chuck is the greatest spy the world has ever known."

"You just said Sarah was."

"She got her skills the old-fashioned way. Chuck's were surgically implanted. He'd be nothing but an analyst with the interest…innersept…" She shook her head, annoyed that her tongue wouldn't do what she wanted.

"Carina, you're completely toasted." Morgan held out his hands. "Come on, let me get you into bed, and you can sleep this off."

"Gimme your phone," she said imperiously. "I am gonna prove to you that your friend Chuck is a spy. Give me your phone."

Morgan handed it over, knowing he would regret it. Hopefully Chuck would forgive him letting her wake him at this hour of the morning.

She scrolled through his list of contacts, and touched the screen, putting the phone to her ear. "Chuck, we need you," she suddenly said. "There's Ring agents everywhere, and I can't find Casey or Sarah." She shrugged. "Uh…I guess so. I think I saw him. Just get up here, will you Chuck? We need you. We need Charles Carmichael…Fine, be that way. You want the code, I'll give you the damn code. Orange, orange, green, red, orange, red. Chuck? Chuck? Oh, sorry, _Mister_ Carmichael. We're at the B&B, in the attic. Just get your ass over here, will you?" She tossed the phone back to Morgan. "Jeez!"

"Now what?" asked Morgan.

* * *

"Now we wait," said Leader. "Abort the mission. We have a new priority. Begin infiltration. Ready the delaying tactics."

* * *

Sarah sat in the van, bored. Morgan had gotten home an hour ago and Carina had yet to show her face. Time for another check-in. "Casey?"

"Nothing."

_Dammit, Carina, where are you?_

A few blocks away, a red Porsche parked, and a man got out.

* * *

Morgan and Carina were huddled together, sharing warmth, when a loud _thwack!_ brought them out of their light doze. "What the hell was that?" asked Morgan.

"Probably a cable dart, shot into the masonry of the chimney on the other side of this wall," said Carina calmly. "Now you'll see."

* * *

Leader nodded to the men with the delaying tactics. "Go."

* * *

The door flew open, Charles Carmichael stood in the entrance, ready for business. "Carina?"

Morgan stood. "Chuck!"

Charles Carmichael froze. "Morgan Grimes?"

* * *

"Chuck?" said Sarah, unbelieving. Then she flipped a switch, "Casey!"

"We heard. We're moving."

Sarah's response was lost to the sound of the van walls echoing as something large and heavy slammed against them.

* * *

With the magnets in place against the van doors, the glue team inserted the nozzles of their guns into the seams and sprayed epoxy over the locks and every available surface. "Delaying tactics deployed."

Leader nodded. "Infiltration team, go." He turned to his man. "Suppress the house. I'm going in. In one minute, begin playback."

Leader left the van, joining his delaying team as they sprinted away from the wildly rocking van.

* * *

"Casey, they sealed us in! Van doors are blocked somehow!"

"Corporal Hollis, take your team to the van, free them up. This will slow our advance, Sarah."

"Tell me something I don't know. I just hope Chuck can hold them off somehow. _Open the goddamned door!_"

* * *

Charles Carmichael toppled, three tranq darts shot into his back from close range. More men, their weapons clearly _not_ tranq pistols, took aim at Morgan and Carina. "Leader, the room is secure."

Leader mounted the attic stairs, crossed to the room. He stared down at Chuck's unconscious form. "Excellent. Take him away."

* * *

The sudden crackling in their earpieces took everyone by surprise. The agents in the van stopped, but Casey's team continued their steady advance as he listened.

"_They didn't betray anyone."_

"_Not you, maybe. Not their country…"_

* * *

"I can't let you do that," said Carina, struggling to her feet.

"I don't see how you expect to stop us," said Leader. "Stay out of this, and all shall be well between us. But if you prefer, I will allow you and your friend Mr. Beam to go two on one against my friend Heinrich here."

Heinrich flipped out his straight razor with a practiced move. "I got a new one, bitch."

Carina wobbled into a fighting stance.

Morgan hit her over the head with the empty bottle, knocking her to the floor, unconscious.

Leader looked at the fallen agent, then at Morgan. "Most sensible, Mr. Carmichael…" He smiled, a shark's smile.

He dropped the bottle. "It's Grimes." Morgan cleared his throat, suddenly gone dry. "My name is Grimes, not Carmichael."

Leader smirked. "I'm sure it is. Mr. Grimes, you are going to do me a service today. I'm in need of a messenger."

Morgan looked down at Carina. "What if I don't want to carry your message?"

"In exchange for your service, I will restrain Heinrich here from having his way with you and your lady friend."

"Please say no," said Heinrich.

"Heinrich," said Leader with a touch of frost in his voice, "Unless my eyes deceive me Miss Miller has my flashdrive in her pocket. Do fetch it."

Heinrich took a step forward and swung his blade at Carina's leg. One layer of cloth parted, and the flash drive fell to the floor. Heinrich picked it up and handed it to Leader.

Leader looked it over, and put it in his pocket. He said to Morgan, "An artist, is he not?"

Morgan watched Heinrich play with his razor. "What's the message?"

"Thank you."

"That's the entire message?"

Leader nodded, amused.

"Who do I give it to?"

Leader shrugged. "Anyone you please. I'm sure the most deserving recipients will make themselves known to you in due course." He dismissed Morgan from his attention. "Gentlemen, we go. Be careful with our prize. Bump his body if you must, but not his head. We have plans for that."

* * *

"Colonel Casey! " Hollis' voice overrode the sound of Carina and Morgan talking. "The van's been secured with magnets and some kind of glue, sir. We're bringing up pry bars."

"Understood." He understood everything.

* * *

Morgan jumped at the sound of the trapdoor slapping open behind him. By the time he turned someone with a uniform and a very large gun was blinding him with a spotlight. "Don't shoot!" he yelled, "I'm unarmed!"

"Yeah, that's not the only thing you don't have, moron. Any hostiles left over?"

"Casey?" The big man with the big gun grunted a warning at him. "No! They took Chuck, they took her flashdrive, what the hell's going on?"

"Later for that." Casey pulled Carina's hands behind her back and cuffed them. He turned to his team. "You two. Feet, shoulders. Take her down the shaft. Come on, Grimes."

"Is Sarah around? Shouldn't we wait for her?"

"I don't think that would be a very good idea." Casey pulled out his earpiece, and made a call on his personal phone. "Corporal Hollis?"

"Colonel? Why are you calling me on this line?"

"What's the status on the van, Hollis?"

"Any minute now, sir."

"Give me ten minutes, Hollis."

"Sir?"

"You heard me."

"Sir! It'll be, uh, about ten minutes, sir."

"You're a good man, Hollis. I owe you one."

"Sir?"

"You'll understand in ten minutes, Hollis." _When you open that door._

* * *

Seven minutes later he got a call. "Colonel Casey?"

"What is it, Hollis?"

"Agent Carmichael's free, sir. She ripped the interior partition out of its housing and shattered the side window." The window was supposed to be shatter-proof. Casey wondered if they'd tested it from the inside.

"Thanks for the head's up." He dropped the phone, no time for chit-chat.

Casey drove like a wild man, moving his Crown Vic in and around the slower-moving roadhogs as if it was a much lighter car. Every so often he flicked his eyes to his mirrors, but no Porsche had caught up to him yet. Morgan wrestled his seatbelt into the catch, having been thrown against parts of the car three times and Casey twice.

"Stay on your side of the country, Grimes."

The car was softer.

A noise from the back seat drew Morgan's attention, and he suddenly remembered that Casey'd just casually tossed Carina's limp form back there like a bag of clothes he didn't care about very much. Plus she was cuffed. Even if she was awake there was no way she could—

"Casey, what the hell!" shouted Carina in her slurred voice. "Get these cuffs off of me! What the hell are you—Hey!"

Casey changed lanes and she slid over against the door.

Morgan thought someone should buckle her in, and it looked like he was that someone, since Casey was driving (and he put major air-quotes around that word in his head) and probably couldn't do that very well with his feet, but unbuckling himself to do it was a very scary proposition just now. He fumbled with his seat, found a handle and pulled, dropping the back a few inches in a reclining position. He reached back and pulled Carina to the middle of the seat, and sat her up.

"Martin! Get these things off me!"

"Sorry, no keys," said Morgan, fumbling to get the belt around her while upside-down.

"And I took your FRODO," added Casey.

"What you go and do that for?" she groused. "Dammit, Casey, I _like_ being able to get out of handcuffs on my own terms."

"I'm sure you do, but Hurricane Sarah is on its way and I really don't need the distraction. You stay put for now." He swerved, making them all sway side-to-side.

"I think I'm gonna be sick."

The window went down. "Stick your head out if you're gonna puke."

"I'm not sticking my head out the goddamn window!"

"Then shut up." The window went back up.

"Come on, Casey, you don't have to be rude," said Morgan.

"Grimes, do you know who the hell I am?"

"John Casey…who sells Beastmasters?"

"Colonel John Casey, United States Marines and NSA. My mission, _our_ mission, is to protect the most valuable piece of US Government intelligence apparatus in the world, and your girlfriend here just handed him over to the bad guys! Is that comic book enough for you, Grimes, or do I need to break out my box of crayons?"

Morgan looked over his shoulder at Carina, who wasn't looking at anyone. "Is that what was on the flash drive they took? What about Chuck?"

"I'm _talking_ about Chuck, moron! The flash drive was just icing on that cake."

Morgan groped for a ray of sunshine. "Come on, Casey, I'm sure she didn't _mean_ to."

"I know she didn't 'mean to', Grimes. I don't think she meant to do anything. I _do_ think she was flailing around in her spastic 'poor-me' angst, spilling classified beans in an unsecured environment to anyone who might have been listening, most of whom are considerably smarter than you."

"What are you talking about, Casey?"

"Chuck and Sarah, idiot. She's been wanting to split them up since she got here."

"She deserves more!" shouted Carina from the back, cuffed and belted and still trying to hit something.

Morgan stiffened.

Casey beat him to the punch. "Chuck gave her more."

"He turned her into a hausfrau!"

Casey growled. "He gave her a bigger pond to swim in, nitwit, one with room in it for her to try being a hausfrau if she wanted to. She only looked smaller. _You're_ the one who wanted to surround her with small things and tell her how big she was! Now shut up and let me get us, and that means you, into protective custody before Mrs. Bartowski catches up to us and wants to know where you put her husband, 'cause that's not a conversation I want to be a part of."

"Scared, Casey?"

"Can it, Grimes. I may be a Marine, but I'm not stupid."

Morgan heard something from the back seat, and started to turn and look.

"Eyes front, soldier."

Morgan turned away, staring out the window as Casey turned the radio on, loud. Both men would go to their graves, honestly able to say that they'd never seen or heard Carina Miller cry.

* * *

Carina hadn't managed to bring her hands around front while sitting there belted in, a circumstance that only surprised Casey, even though Morgan knew how flexible she was. Casey grunted once, then picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. "Come on, Grimes, she's gotta be close by now."

Fortunately Casey called ahead, so the halls between him and the holding cells were blessedly free of people he'd have to step on or knock down.

He stood Carina up in the holding cell and spur her about like a toy. "Grimes, here," he said, handing the smaller man his keys. "Get those off of her, I've got to get to the security booth pronto."

Morgan saluted. "Sir. Yes, sir." He grinned. "I've always wanted to say that."

Casey rolled his eyes and left.

Morgan removed the cuffs, and stood back as Carina rubbed her wrists. She turned, saw his face, and decided to sit on the other side of the room. She opened her mouth.

"Don't."

She looked at his face again, wondering.

"The person you need to apologize to isn't here, and may never be again. Your apology will have to wait."

She shrugged, anything but nonchalant. "I'm not going anywhere, not with two bloodthirsty monsters out there ready to rip me apart."

Casey returned, palming open the door, and Morgan took a step back. "Carina."

She watched his face as the thick glass moved in front of it, sealing her in. She remembered the last time she'd seen that look on his face. _You mess with _my_ best friend, you mess with me!_

"Make it three," he said, and walked away.

* * *

Sarah left a trail of dented walls and swinging doors behind her, except for one that would need a new hinge. She saw no one between one portal and another, not because no one was there but because of a serious case of tunnel vision. Even Muffin knew better than to say or do anything but hold the next one open.

The locked entrance of the security wing held her up slightly, but her rage built as she waited, vibrating slightly in place as the circuitry took its electronic time processing her handprint. Eventually the electrons in the wire caught up with her mood and released the lock. She slammed the heavy metal door open, bringing Casey out of the interview room as she ran for the holding cells and—there she was! Sarah dashed down the hall, pausing to palm the pad by the cell, throwing herself forward in anticipation of—

The lock did not buzz. The door did not pull out of her way.

Sarah bounced.

She turned and slapped at the pad again. The door ignored her again, and she kicked at it. "Open!" she yelled, the only coherent word she could form.

"No," said Casey.

"Casey, open the door! She gave them Chuck!" She kicked it again.

"Maybe," Casey grunted. "But no one deserves what you'll do to her."

"Fine," she snarled. "Then I'll find someone who will!"

Casey waved. "There's only one handprint that'll open that door now." She looked at him, assessing. "Don't even think about it, Bartowski. Both it and I have to be alive, and that's a load even you can't swing." That didn't stop him from backing up.

Howling with rage, Sarah flung her knife at Carina's face, scratching the door before it bounced off. For a second she stood there, panting. She stalked up to the door and stared at Carina through the heavy bulletproof glass, before she knelt to pick up her knife.

She stood there, staring at Carina, her knife busy between her fingers. Slowly, delicately, she used the razor point to pierce the skin on each of the fingers of her left hand, the center of her palm. She made a fist as she put the knife away with her uninjured hand.

She stepped as close to the door as she could and not be inside, and pressed her bloody handprint onto the blemished glass. "If anything happens to him, I _will _kill you. I want you to know this."

Carina stepped up to the glass, put her hand opposite Sarah's. "If anything happens to Chuck, I want you to kill me. I hope you know this."

If Sarah knew or heard anything her friend said, her face didn't show it. She peeled her hand off the door, inch by sticky inch, turned and left.

Carina watched her go, tears in her eyes, both sorrow…and joy. _She's still Sarah. She's still _my_ Sarah._

Casey watched her go, then looked at Carina, still standing there with her hand against the glass. He walked up to it and put his hand in the blood. "If anything happens to Chuck, I'm opening this door."

* * *

**A/N2 **I hope the wait was worth it. Whatever will happen to poor Chuck? Or is that Charles?


End file.
